Hundreds of property owners lodged planning appeals against new tax to spur building on vacant land

Hundreds of property owners lodged planning appeals in one week in May against a new tax designed to spur building on vacant land, an Oireachtas committee heard on Thursday. The 600 appeals have added to the already high workload of An Bord Pleanála as it tries to overcome a major backload of planning files with a “blitz” of decision-making on smaller cases.

In the face of the housing crisis the residential zoned land tax (RZLT) takes force next year as part of the Government’s effort to unlock vacant sites. The aim is to discourage hoarding by imposing costs on property owners, thereby boosting the supply of new homes.

But appeals against the new tax now comprise “about 16 per cent” of An Bord Pleanála’s workload, the body’s interim chairwoman Oonagh Buckley told the Oireachtas Housing Committee.

“Some 600 valid appeals relating to residentially zoned land tax under section 80 of the Finance Act, 2021 were received in May of this year and will require to be processed quickly,” she said. Such appeals were received in a single week in May. They come after the rejection of direct appeals to local authorities, who are charged with mapping out properties on which the RZLT will be imposed.

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Ms Buckley became interim chair in January after former chairman Dave Walsh took early retirement at a time of turmoil in An Bord Pleanála caused by investigations into former deputy chairman Paul Hyde. Hyde was convicted last week for failing to declare certain property interests to the planning appeal authority and received a two-month prison sentence. He has appealed the sentence.

Decision-making at An Bord Pleanála was delayed last year because of unscheduled and scheduled board departures, leading to a sharp downturn in the number of settled cases. At one point the number of board members dropped to four, down from the usual 15. The Government appointed interim members to fill the gap, bringing the number back to 15. However, Ms Buckley said one such member is soon to leave again because of a promotion.

After being appointed secretary general of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, Ms Buckley herself will also leave in September. There is no decision on her successor from Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien.

With “roughly a year’s intake” of 3,400 cases to hand at present, Ms Buckley said An Bord Pleanála made a “blitz” of decisions last week and expects to continue that approach again later this year. “The board issued more than 135 decisions last week,” she said. “In fact we took about 181 decisions last week.”

Although she expects the output of decisions to “significantly increase” in the second half of the year, she said the “blitz” approach could not be followed for larger case files.

The board has resolved to prioritise larger cases because it would face paying fines to developers if it misses deadlines for housing applications under new laws on “large-scale residential developments”.

An Bord Pleanála still has to work through 76 strategic housing development files under “fast-track” legislation, now lapsed, which was supposed to speed up delivery of large housing projects.